DANCE IN REVIEW; Evoking Memories Of Cherished Ones

Richard Daniels offered meditations and celebrations last Wednesday night at the Flea Theater. It was an evening of choreographic and musical solos, with ghostly presences haunting the stage.

Steven L. Cantor was the pianist for Mr. Daniels's new ''13 Anniversaries,'' to piano pieces that Leonard Bernstein dedicated to people who had meant much to him. Mr. Daniels's solo suite honored his own gallery of people, living and dead, whom he had cared about. This was the first time the Bernstein estate has permitted these scores to be danced.

Music became the breath of life for Mr. Daniels, who began the work sprawled atop a piano and ended it by resting against the piano bench. Knowledge of those celebrated by Mr. Daniels or Mr. Bernstein was not necessary. The confident skips and strides of some episodes and the slow bends and contemplative pauses of others were expressive in themselves.

Mr. Daniels is a former dancer who, after a career as a dance manager, returned to the stage in 1995 after a 15-year absence, during which he learned he was H.I.V.-positive. Dance gave him a new vision and a sense of healing.

Christopher Gillis, a former dancer with Paul Taylor's company, created ''Landscape'' shortly before his death from AIDS in 1993. It was staged for Mr. Daniels by the choreographer's sister Margie Gillis. There was a dry branch on the floor, and Mr. Daniels's twisted postures to recorded orchestral music by Grieg suggested that he was becoming a withered tree. Yet, the man he portrayed displayed a stoic endurance.